


Alone in the Bitterness

by Lissadiane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Friendship is Magic, M/M, Meddling Steve, Nurse Bucky, Scott Lang The X-Ray Tech, Steve is trying his best, disaster Clint, no powers au, uncle Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 08:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20618066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissadiane/pseuds/Lissadiane
Summary: Bucky is a fucking professional. Bucky doesn’t have crushes on his patients and he doesn’t pine after them and he doesn’t search the gutters for them when they stop showing up in his ER. He doesn’t panic that they’re dead and miss them when they’re gone.Except maybe this one time.In which Bucky is a nurse and Clint is his favourite (and most frequent) patient.





	Alone in the Bitterness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudAtlas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/gifts).

> This fic is dedicated to the amazing and generous [CloudAtlas](https://cloud--atlas.tumblr.com), who for some inexplicable reason saw fit to bid on me in the [Charity Hawktion](https://charityhawktion.tumblr.com/). I am so grateful to you for your generosity and I hope you enjoy this story and it's everything you hoped for.
> 
> Also, thanks to the Hawktion mods for giving us all the chance to raise some money for some very important charities and all the creators and bidders who participated!!
> 
> This fic was a labour of love between be and a whole bunch of people, including [CloudAtlas](https://cloud--atlas.tumblr.com) who requested it, [skoosie](https://skoosiepants.tumblr.com) who read and and loved it even when it was a mess, [ BeTheFlame](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) and [ Shorty](http://TheShortyWrites.tumblr.com) who beta read the first half and then I finished it and posted it before they finished because I'm a monster, so any remaining mistakes are mine, [ awheckery](http://awheckery.tumblr.com) who helped me out with each plot issue I stumbled on to (and for a story with very little plot, that turned out to be so many), [ clintobarto](https://clintobarto.tumblr.com/) for cheerleading, [ Arson](https://candycanedarcy.tumblr.com/) for assistance with some communication issues and [ CB](http://kangofu_cb.tumblr.com) for suggesting Nurse Bucky in the first place.
> 
> No, I'm not spending my time adding links and thank yous to avoid thinking up a title, why do you ask? But seriously, thank you and I hope you like it!!
> 
> The title is from How To Save A Life from The Fray. So. That happened.

The Emergency Room isn’t as busy as it could be, which is awesome, because Bucky is fucking exhausted. He’s on his ninth hour of a twelve hour shift and there isn’t enough coffee in the world to get him through this -- especially not the toxic stuff they try to pass off as coffee in the break room in a flimsy excuse to get everyone to spend actual cash at the vending machine or the cafeteria that everyone sees through.

Bucky refuses to give in, and drinks that shit one mug at a time and when it rots his stomach, he’s gonna put in the biggest workers compensation claim that ever lived and that’s his retirement plan.

He slows down long enough to finish his sixth mug of the day, grimaces as it slides down his throat, and then swings by the nurse’s station to check the labs that just came in and for new orders from the doctors, spinning easily to avoid Maria, who’s speeding through the station on a phone, shouting about something above his pay grade. He signs off on his pending report, tucks the pen back in his pocket because fuck letting anyone else get their grimy hands on his good pen -- pens are currency here and he’s not into sharing -- and barely manages to avoid a puddle of what could be anything but is probably puke, that someone is already diligently cleaning up.

It’s a mess -- it’s always a mess here, and Bucky makes it a personal goal to get home without any dubious stains on his scrubs, and so far, he’s winning this shift.

And then Frank walks by, customary scowl on his face, and says, “Your boy’s back, Barnes. Put him in Three.”

Bucky, for the record, doesn’t have a boy.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t instantly know who Frank’s referring to and bristle at the implication.

“Fuck you,” he says, not even slowing, checking the assignment board because if he isn’t assigned Bed Three, he’s gonna switch -- not because of any sense of possession or anything like that but because it’s a complicated fucking file and he’s pretty sure if he lets Claire get her hands on it, she’s gonna fuck it up, even though she’s probably the best nurse on shift, but Bucky’s got personal experience getting his hands on --

Not, like. Actual experience. Bucky’s a goddamn professional. And no matter what anybody says, he hasn’t gotten his hands on this particular patient, other than in a professional capacity, nor does he spend any of his time wondering what it might be like if he could.

At all.

He slips into the curtained alcove around Bed Three smoothly, because everything Bucky does is smooth, and not because he makes any attempt to be extra smooth around this patient.

He’s got his pen tucked behind his ear and his clipboard in his hand and he’s here to take patient history, nature of complaint, and vitals, that’s all.

So he opens his mouth to say something cool and professional and Clint Barton looks up at his appearance and his entire face brightens with a cheery grin -- despite the fact that he’s clearly in pain and his cradling his right wrist -- and he says, “Bucky! My favourite! The gargoyle at your triage desk wouldn’t tell me if you were on shift today, said it was ‘a matter of security’ and he ‘couldn’t give out personal information like that', like I’d asked or your phone number or whatever, which I didn’t, for the record, though I wouldn’t be opposed to getting it. Hi!”

Bucky’s a fucking professional.

So he doesn’t blush or get flustered or anything stupid like that. He smiles, a bland, professional, caring-as-fuck smile, and says, “Mr. Barton. Again. I see you’ve hurt yourself.”

Clint’s grin doesn’t even falter. “Yup. You might think that I’m doing this on purpose just to spend time with you, but no.” He holds up his wrist -- it’s got fresh bruising and is swollen all to fuck and he waves it around like it’s proof of his plausible deniability and not fucking injured. “Hit my arm. On a door. There was a crack.”

Bucky’s got his theories, okay.

Ever since appearing in his ER six months ago with a chipper attitude and a head injury he couldn’t explain, Clint has made it a habit of showing up every week or two with a new injury and a flimsy excuse. No one could actually be that clumsy.

“We gotta talk about domestic abuse again, Barton?” Bucky asks, studied and casual, looking at the clipboard and not Clint’s face, because it’s hospital policy -- they’ve always gotta ask two things: Is this work related? And do you feel safe at home? Of course, if they suspect this is a result of domestic abuse, they ask if the patient needs help. There are posters all over the hospital. But Bucky can’t do shit if his patients don’t ask for help, so.

“Nope,” Clint says. “Totally single, Bucky. Totally.”

Bucky shoots him a quick look through his lashes, nice and subtle, and Clint’s back to cradling his arm and blinking at Bucky, the very picture of innocence.

“Right. Okay. Tell me what happened while I get your vitals, the doctor should be in shortly, and Scott’s probably already getting a spot warmed up for you in X-Ray.”

Clint’s grin grows even brighter. “You and Scott, same shift? It’s my lucky day!”

“I’m assuming a possibly fractured wrist would indicate otherwise,” Bucky tells him, rolling his eyes.

“Nah,” Clint says, laughing. “This barely hurts compared to some of the shit I’ve done.”

And it’s true. Bucky knows it’s true. Scott Lang down in X-ray has mentioned, offhandedly, that Clint’s X-rays are generally filled with old breaks that were never treated.

Bucky has his fucking theories.

But he does his job, efficient and professional and exuding his carefully curated mix of competence and concern as Clint outlines the tragic situation that led to his latest wound -- he was walking his dog, apparently, when the dog broke free and dashed into a cafe because it was Pizza Wednesday and Lucky’s got a thing for pizza and rather than have to pay for all the pizza his dog was determined to consume, Clint dove for him, trying to catch him, and smashed his wrist on the metal doorframe instead.

It’s one of the flimsiest and improbable stories he’s come in with, but Bucky notes it down and makes the appropriate sounds of concerned sympathy, before taking Clint’s temperature, his blood pressure, and everything else the doctor might need.

“Okay,” he says when he’s done, when Clint’s starting to look a little pinched with pain. “Doctor’ll be in shortly. You need anything?”

Clint hesitates. It’s never good when a patient hesitates, in Bucky’s experience. They're either about to ask for something they know they shouldn’t -- like opiates -- or they’re about to fucking finally talk about the real reason they’re here, which is usually much more complicated and important than whatever surface wound they’ve got.

But Clint just winces and says, “Okay, well, you totally don’t have to do this, okay? Like, it’s entirely out of your job description and pay grade and I totally and completely get it if you can’t do this for me and I wouldn’t normally ask, but I was in the waiting room for an hour, and that’s a long time to wait, and I know sometimes the X-ray thing is busy this time of day, so if you could --”

“Clint,” Bucky says, exasperated. “What do you need?”

He grimaces. “I left Lucky outside in the memorial garden by the helipad, if you happen to be on your break or -- or leaving soon or just needing some air or whatever, and are in that neck of the woods, and wanted to get him some water and make sure he’s alright?”

Bucky blinks. “You… brought your dog to the hospital.”

“Kate said she’d come get him but the subway’s fucked and she’s been waiting for forty-five minutes and I’m so, so sorry if he’s shit in your garden, I will clean that up, I promise.”

Bucky sighs. “I’ve got a break coming up,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Clint’s smile softens with relief. “Thank you, so much.”

“Take care,” Bucky tells him. “I shouldn’t see you as often as I do.”

“You could see me more,” Clint tells him, earnest. “After work hours. Late nights. Early mornings. Whatever you want. I’ll wake up early for you, Bucky -- set an alarm. That’s a sacrifice.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and laughs, and maybe it’s not that professional but he can't help it.

But he doesn’t give Clint his number, so. Chalk one up for patient-nurse relationship.

He hadn’t intended to take his last break, but he swings by the nurse’s station and lets them know before ducking out for fifteen.

He’s not really sure what to expect when he slips into the garden, but the scruffy golden dog with one eye and pizza sauce on his muzzle curled up under the peony bush definitely isn’t it.

“Hey, Lucky,” he says, setting down a bowl of water when the dog’s tail starts wagging and he lifts his head, tongue lolling. “Clint’s gonna be just a little longer.”

He pets the dog’s head and wonders if this is enough evidence to actually validate Clint’s shitty cover story, and wonders if it means all the others have been true too.

In the end, Clint’s wrist isn’t broken, just sprained, and Bucky doesn’t get to see him again before he’s sent home with instructions to ice it, rest it, and for fuck’s sake, be more careful.

*

The thing about having a best friend who is happily cohabitating with his super rich husband and their adorable five year old daughter in Manhattan is that said best friend is eventually going to realize that he abandoned his best friend to a life of solitude and too much pizza in Brooklyn, and then that best friend is probably going to start to meddle.

Bucky likes living in solitude, thank you very much. His life revolves around his job, and he’s okay with that. He works, he sleeps, he eats when he can. It’s a perfectly respectable life.

But Steve disagrees. And since Steve is basically the only reason Bucky is a fully functioning adult who is capable of holding down a job and an apartment, Bucky figures he owes him a few favours.

So that’s why he’s here. In a mid-level Italian restaurant only two hours after getting off a shift full of too much vomit and other bodily fluids. On a blind date with Sharon From Accounting At Stark Industries. Poking at a steak he ordered medium rare that came out very well done instead, with soggy asparagus and a potato that tastes like something Steve’s kid papier mache’d at school.

Because Steve thinks that Bucky needs to find the same sort of marital bliss that he was lucky enough to find and Bucky feels like he’d rather give Steve a kidney, but Steve hasn’t asked for that or any other organ, so.

“So you were part of Mr. Stark’s first prosthetic trial?” Sharon asks, because Bucky’s metal hand is pretty easy to notice, despite the fact that the rest of the arm is covered in the long sleeve button up shirt Steve insisted he wear. Even though it gets caught up in the plates of his goddamn arm.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, politely eating some asparagus. Sharon’s nice. She’s cute. She’s kind. She’s boring as fuck. Bucky feels like an asshole for thinking it, so he adds, “That’s how Tony met Steve.”

Everyone knows about Tony and Steve. Tony invited all of Stark Industries to the wedding.

Her eyes light up. “Aww, Steve,” she says. “He’s the best.”

Bucky chews on more asparagus and musters up a smile that may or may not be more of a grimace.

*

“You’re the worst,” he tells Steve over the phone, in the back of the Uber home. Alone. After dropping Sharon off like a goddamn gentleman.

“Bucky, no!” Steve cries, sounding honestly distressed. Bucky rolls his eyes. “It didn’t work out? But Sharon’s so sweet.”

“I don’t like sweet, Steve,” Bucky says, aiming for patient. “You know I don’t like sweet. When have I ever liked sweet? Never. She thinks you’re the best, though, if that counts for anything. Maybe have Stark give her a raise.”

Steve sighs. “Buck. I worry about you, that’s all. I just wish you could find someone, so you didn’t have to go home to an empty apartment all the time. You need more in your life than just working and sleeping.”

“I eat, too,” Bucky tells him. “Sometimes I jerk off.”

The Uber driver makes a soft sound of protest, so Bucky glares at him in the rearview mirror. Not his goddamn fault the dude is eavesdropping.

“Maybe you should get a pet,” Steve tries. “A cat or a hamster or --”

“Have enough trouble taking care of myself,” Bucky says, the same thing he’s said a million times before, whenever Steve tries to talk him into some sort of companionship. “Not taking on an animal too.”

“I just… I worry about you.”

Bucky closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the headrest. “I know you do. But you don’t have to. I swear to fuck, Steve, I’m not lonely. I got you, and I got Morgan, and I got everyone at work.”

“And Tony,” Steve says, quiet.

Bucky sighs again, loud and gusty. “Yeah, Rogers,” he says, making a show of his reluctance. “I got Stark too, I guess. See? More than enough.”

Steve’s quiet for a minute, thinking, and Bucky leaves him to it, staring out the window at the rain that’s making halos out of the streetlights and neon signs. They pull up in front of his building.

“What about Tinder?” Steve says finally.

“Steve--”

“Grindr?”

“Gotta go, Stevie,” he says. “Just got home.”

He walks into his dark, quiet apartment, doesn’t even bother flipping on a light, and strips off his clothes on the way to his bedroom, leaving a trail that no one’s gonna see and judge him for.

He’s not lonely -- not a bit.

*

A week later, Steve swings by early with a coffee from Bucky’s favourite place, which he is fully aware is a bribe, but he takes it anyway. He glares at Steve over the rim as he takes a sip, though, for good measure.

“I’ve got sixty seconds before my patient needs a shot, Rogers, what do you want?”

“Tony helped me set up a Grindr account for you, don’t be mad, you just gotta download the app and sign in and --”

“For fuck’s sake,” Bucky snaps, but he’s already on his way down the hall, so he does his best to forget all about Grindr and Steve’s bad decisions until lunchtime.

He’s sitting alone, about to dig into whatever mess the cafeteria deemed suitable to serve, when Scott slides into the seat beside him, takes a massive bite of his apple and, mouth still full, says, “So, Rogers wants me to convince you that Grindr’s the way to true love.”

Bucky groans. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to murder him in his sleep, I don’t even care if Stark’s probably got some creepy ass security protocol specifically to prevent Steve from being murdered in his sleep, I will find a way.”

Scott grins. “That’s what I said. Well, not specifically, but I sorta said that. I tried to tell him that Grindr is not the place for true love, it’s the place for dirty, nasty hookups and dick pics -- like, in a good way, not in a judgemental way, because I don’t judge.”

“Thank you,” Bucky says. “Steve’s gotta stop thinking that I need --”

“I also told him you already found your true love and he’s probably not on Grindr.” He takes another smug, snappy bite of his apple and Bucky just stares, because he has not, he has not found love at all -- not true love or fake love or any sort of love in between. Who the fuck --

“Clint Barton. You remember. Hot blonde with a nasty habit of breaking bones and needing stitches? Shows up in the ER damned near weekly to make heart eyes at you.”

“I -- I’m not. What?” Bucky can’t even muster up justifiable rage at Scott’s insinuation. He can’t. He’s got nothing. Nothing but a gaping mouth and a few choppy syllables and a whole bunch of denial that he can’t find words to express.

“He asked if you were single,” Scott says. “While I was X-raying his wrist.”

“That’s. That’s irrelevant. He’s a patient. I would never -- I’m not -- who are you even talking about? I don’t remember him.”

Scott laughs. “I wonder if Barton’s got a Grindr. I bet he does. I bet it’s got much more interesting pictures than all the pictures I’ve seen -- and you know how I love a good bone shot.”

Bucky -- Bucky needs to change the subject before he chokes on the disgusting lunch he hasn’t even tasted yet. “Okay,” he says, and if his voice sounds a little strangled, it’s got nothing to do with Grindr or bone shots or anyone who may or may not be a frequent patient of his. Jesus. “Okay, show me how Grindr works.”

It’s not how he wanted his lunch break to go.

*

The next time Clint comes in, his face has been beaten black and blue. Someone wearing a heavy ring hit him so many times that his eye is in the process of swelling shut, his lip is cracked, his nose is bloody, and Bucky’s pretty sure he’d be able to recognize the ring just from the pattern of marks it left along Clint’s right cheekbone.

He has to take a moment outside the room to calm his temper enough to keep his hands from shaking before ducking back inside.

“Hey,” Clint says with a grin that quickly turns into a wince when it pulls on his lip. “I wouldn’t have come but Nat didn’t have time to swing by and check for concussion and she worries about things like that.”

“Nat?” he asks, already grabbing swabs to wipe away the blood to see if Clint needs stitches. He grits his teeth as Clint flinches and adds, “We gotta talk about domestic violence again?”

Clint snorts. “You should see the other guy,” he says. Bucky’s not amused, and Clint can probably tell, because he adds quickly, “Nat’s my friend, not my wife, and she doesn’t beat me. Don’t worry. I’m totally and completely single.”

“What, you walk into a door again?” He studies the cut above Clint’s eye and says, “You need a few stitches here.”

“No, I -- shit, that _hurts_, I don’t need stitches, usually I just slap a bandaid on it, or whatever. Look, just do the concussion check and prove that I’m fine so I can go home and sleep without my neighbour bursting in every hour to wake me because she’s terrified Nat’ll kill her if she doesn’t. Okay?” He flutters his eyelashes, clearly trying to look charming despite the mess of his face, and it’s gotta hurt, with his swollen eye.

Bucky breathes out carefully and then says, “What happened?” as he starts disinfecting the wound.

“Some assholes were causing trouble,” Clint says with an easy shrug. “I scared them off.”

So if he’s single -- which Bucky only cares about for purely professional reasons -- and all his wounds aren’t the result of domestic abuse, then Bucky’s left with his second most likely theory. Vigilante.

It’s not that far-fetched a theory, not in a city like this. There seems to be a masked vigilante showing up at every back alley mugging or drug deal these days.

It’s a busy day in the ER, and Bucky’s waiting for a bunch of test results for other patients, he’s got a broken arm that needs casting, he’s got two patients waiting for discharge, he’s got about a million things to focus on, and all his brain seems inclined to think about is what the ring that made the marks on Clint’s cheek might look like, and whether or not the idiot thought to call the cops.

“Cops catch the guys?” he asks, as casual as he can.

He’s close enough that he can see the flecks of colour that make up Clint’s pretty (objectively speaking) blue eyes, and he can see when they widen a little. “No,” he says, voice going soft, probably because Bucky’s so close, carefully cleaning the bits of rock and dirt out of his scraped up cheek. “Didn’t call them.”

“Clint,” he says, exasperated and tired. It’s been a long day and now he’s got Clint’s blood on his gloved hands and he’s near the end of his shift and he just wants to go home and sleep until he forget all about this trainwreck of a day.

“They won’t cause any more problems,” Clint says, and it’s not really Bucky’s problem if they do.

Except he’ll have to put Clint back together again.

“You need to take better care,” he says. But there’s nothing left for him here, his job is done and he’s got patients waiting and other places to be and there’s really no reason for him to linger.

He lingers anyway.

“I’m okay,” Clint tells him, with a careful, crooked smile. “Don’t worry. Seriously. Shoulda seen the other guys, Bucky. They won’t mess with me again.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and sighs and says, “Doctor’ll be right in.”

His shift ends before he finds out if Clint needs stitches or concussion protocol or anything other than a firm lecture and someone to keep him out of trouble.

*

Bucky’s favourite times, other than when he’s at work and having a day when he feels capable and competent and like he’s actually making a difference, are when Steve and Tony decide it’s date night and they need a babysitter.

He’s been wrapped around Morgan’s teeny tiny finger since the day she was born.

“Uncle Bucky!” she cries, little arms already up and reaching for him, her sleeping bag slung over one shoulder and her dad carrying her _Paw Patrol_ suitcase behind her.

Bucky swings her up and crushes her into a careful, careful hug, ignoring when the sleeping bag catches him in the side of the head.

“Keep spinning,” Steve says, sounding tired but amused. “She’ll puke and you’ll be the one cleaning it up.”

Bucky deals with enough puke at work, so he puts her down and ruffles her carefully pigtailed hair and says, “Drop the suitcase and go, Rogers. I got this.”

“We’re gonna watch _Paw Patrol_ and eat so much ice cream, we puke,” Morgan says with relish, already throwing herself onto the sofa and rearranging the pillows.

“Either way, looks like your night’s ending with a vomiting kid,” Steve says, handing over the suitcase. “Thanks so much, Buck. Tony’s got some sort of benefit he’s dragging me to, but he’s promised we’ll sneak out early and --”

“Don’t wanna know what you two intend to get up to,” Bucky tells him, grinning as Steve’s cheeks heat up.

“Pizza,” he says, desperate, looking at Morgan who doesn’t give a shit about what her dads intend to get up to while she’s staying over at her favourite (only) uncle’s shitty Brooklyn apartment. “We’re going for pizza. And beer. Maybe some wings.”

“Right.” Bucky winks obnoxiously and Steve’s still squawking about it as Bucky closes the door in his face.

They watch _Paw Patrol_. They eat ice cream and chips and cookies and pizza and so much soda, even Bucky gets a stomach ache. Morgan does his hair up in little butterfly clips and paints his nails a garish shade of purple and barely manages to sit still while Bucky returns the favour.

She falls asleep in the half collapsed blanket fort they build together, clutching her ratty old teddy bear, and Bucky tucks her in carefully, taking a picture that shows off her spiked hair and the moustache she’d begged Bucky to draw on her face.

He sends it to Steve who sends back a sleepy, satisfied selfie that was clearly taken in bed, with an arm that better be Stark’s slung around him.

And Bucky goes to bed and he’s still not lonely.

There’s no reason at all to be lonely.

Morgan wakes him in the morning with a high pitched war cry, a cannonball to the gut and demands for peanut butter pancakes.

Bucky’s got everything he needs and it would be selfish to want anything else.

*

The next time he sees Clint, he gets puked on.

Clint’s gray and sweaty and desperate around the eyes, shaking and hunched over and he apologizes half a dozen times before he starts puking again and this time, Bucky’s ready with pail.

“At least it’s not a broken bone this time,” he says, grim, as Clint pukes violently. “Scott’s gonna be disappointed, though.”

Clint manages to laugh despite the vomiting.

“I’m sick,” he confesses weakly when he’s done, flopping back on the bed and grimacing. “I puked on you. I’ll never get your number now.”

“Tell me all your symptoms,” Bucky says, grabbing the thermometer. “We’ll get you feeling better.”

“Your number would make me feel better,” Clint says miserably, opening his mouth for the thermometer.

Bucky’s thinking it’s probably some strain of flu -- the hospital’s been overrun with a nasty virus lately, but then Clint finishes up his description of all his symptoms with, “It started a little while after I got dinner at a food truck that tasted awful, but I thought that’s just how it was supposed to taste, until the puking started.”

Bucky sighs. “You need a keeper,” he says.

Clint is sweaty and clammy and green and gray around the edges, his hair sweat-slicked and spikey, but Bucky still can’t help finding it endearing when his eyes get really big and he says, “You can keep me, Bucky. If you want.”

“The doctor’ll be right in,” Bucky says, making a quick and professional exit.

*

Most of the time, Bucky’s good. He likes how busy his job keeps him, he likes that he gets a few days off at a time to rest and recover and catch up on all his shows on Netflix before getting right back into it.

But sometimes it’s hard.

Sometimes he tries his best and the patients don’t make it. Sometimes he’s the one left standing with the families while they try to put their worlds back together missing whatever crucial piece they lost. Sometimes he’s the one getting the test results back and looking at them and knowing that whatever worst case scenario they gave that patient is actually the one that’s real.

It should get easier but it doesn’t.

He knows he never woulda made it out of the hospital after the accident that took his arm without the nurses who talked him through the pain, who celebrated every small, stupid step he took towards healing, who reassured him that losing part of himself didn’t mean he’d lost all of himself and that his life was still going to be just as full and meaningful after the accident as it had been before.

That’s why he went to school for nursing. To hold people’s hands and tell them everything was going to be okay, that just because it hurt now doesn’t mean it would hurt forever.

So it hurts, down to the very core of him, when he’s got to hold their hands and tell them something different.

After those shifts -- that’s when the quiet and the loneliness when he gets home to his dark, empty apartment is a little too heavy.

That’s when he thinks that maybe Steve’s got a fucking point with the loneliness thing.

The thing, though, about Bucky’s accident is that it didn’t just change the trajectory of his own life. It changed Steve’s, too, because Steve was there. Steve was the one on his hands and knees begging Bucky to breathe and to stop screaming and to stay with him, Steve doing his best to stop the bleeding, Steve who ended up wrapped up in a foil shock blanket, pale and shivering so hard his teeth kept snapping together, sitting on a bench in the back of the ambulance watching the paramedics keep Bucky alive.

So Steve signed up for rushing into danger and keeping people alive, and Bucky signed up for keeping them that way once they got to the hospital, and sometimes Bucky wonders where they’d both be if it had never happened.

As it is, though, even after they met Stark and Bucky got a new arm and Steve got an entire fucking happily ever after, their lives are still so wrapped up in each other that Steve knows when Bucky’s had a bad shift. He hears about it from someone else at the hospital, the place is worse than high school ever was for gossip, and he knows just what Bucky needs to keep his head above water. So he shows up after Bucky’s shift, lets himself in with the key Bucky keeps reminding him isn’t his anymore since he moved out, and drags Bucky’s drunk, angry ass out of bed in the middle of the night.

They always end up at the same shitty diner they spent countless late nights studying at all through school together, hunched over chocolate chip pancakes and coffee.

And Steve, because he knows Bucky better than anybody else knows him, is always quiet and patient and waits until Bucky gets his shit together enough to talk.

“I was fine,” Bucky says this time, after a particularly brutal shift. “You didn’t have to come.”

Steve’s eyebrows go up and he sips his coffee and says, “I called three times and you didn’t answer, so.”

“Stark probably doesn’t appreciate you running out of bed at three AM and driving all the way from Manhattan to check on me. And Morgan’ll be sad if you aren’t home by the time she wakes up.”

“Tony,” Steve says, with that same emphasis he’s been using for the past seven years, which is just about the same amount of time Bucky’s been refusing to call Stark by his first name just because he happened to somehow have convinced Steve to date him, “is worried too. You know he doesn’t mind. He knew we were a package deal before he asked me to marry him.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. It’s not that he doesn’t like Stark -- he does -- but appearances must be maintained. “And Morgan?”

“Will be so excited when I walk in the door dragging her favourite uncle along,” Steve says mildly. “We’re going to the zoo.”

Bucky groans like the idea of a day at the zoo with Steve and his husband and his kid sounds like torture, and not his favourite kinda day. He’s been willing to do whatever it took to make her smile since the day she was born and Steve dropped her in Bucky’s arms, not even caring that one was metal. He’s probably gonna buy her more cotton candy than she can eat, and every kinda stuffed animal in the gift shop, and Steve knows it.

“Seriously, though,” he says, softer now. “I’m okay.”

“I know, Buck,” Steve says, his smile small and sad. “And you’ll be even better after a day spent with us.”

It’s true, so Bucky doesn’t argue.

*

“Kangaroos are part of the marsupial family,” Morgan says, bright, riding on Bucky’s shoulders and swinging her feet happily, kicking him with each swing. She mispronounces marsupial but Bucky’s not gonna correct her. “That’s what Mr. B says.”

The kangaroos, Bucky thinks to himself, are clearly fucking. So. He turns away casually and smoothly before she can ask why they’re doing what they’re clearly doing, because being an uncle means getting to leave all the hard conversations to her dads. Who have conveniently disappeared.

“Are they?” Bucky asks, frowning scanning the crowds. “Who’s Mr. B? And where are your fathers?”

“Mr. B is my teacher,” she says, and then, just as matter-of-factly, “And Daddy and Papa are kissing behind the ice cream stand. Can we have ice cream, Uncle Bucky?”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. He’s _tired_, but in the good way -- in the way that feels like too much sun and too many smiles -- and he’s not surprised at all that Stark’s tempted Steve behind the ice cream stand to make out like teenagers.

“Of course you can,” Bucky tells her, already lining up. “And if your fathers aren’t back by the time we’re through this massive line, we’ll buy something extra cold to dump over their heads to cool them off.”

She cheers and then pouts when they miraculously reappear just in time to join Bucky in line, but Bucky cheers her up by buying her just about every toy she wants from the gift shop, despite how many times Steve implies that there isn’t enough room in her bedroom for another goddamn giant panda.

Not his problem, and he’s gotta keep the bribes coming if he wants to stay her favourite uncle.

That night, his entire body aches and buzzes with the pleased sort of exhaustion that comes from a day with Steve and Morgan (and Stark, though he won’t ever admit it), and Bucky doesn’t need any booze at all to fall asleep.

He’s rested and ready for work early the next morning, and sends Steve a quick thank you on his way in, not bothering to say why. Steve already knows.

*

It’s not like Bucky counts the days that pass between Clint’s visits. He’s not as desperately infatuated as that, no matter what Scott says. Besides, all he really knows about Clint is that he hurts himself far too frequently, and that he flirts with just about anybody that moves -- Bucky’s not delusional enough to think Clint’s frequent requests for his number and casual mentions of being single are specific to Bucky. He probably says the same shit to Scott, though Bucky’s never actually worked up the courage or inclination to ask.

Anyway. He doesn’t count the days, is the point. But it’s been 27 of them by the time he sees Clint again, which is pretty much a record. 

The thing is, though, that New York attracts its fair share of problems, and along with it, more superheroes and vigilantes than most other urban centres, on a per capita basis. Bucky doesn’t care about the superheroes and vigilantes one way or the other, so long as they keep their hero-ing and vigilante-ism out of his neighbourhood. There are some at the hospital of the opinion that the heroes tend to make an already shitty situation worse, what with their casual disregard for civilian casualties and the way they tend to attract arch enemies and nemeses with even less regard for those caught in the crossfire.

Bucky’s hospital doesn’t deal with a lot of the casualties from superhero action. Most of the bloodier stuff is kept to Hell’s Kitchen, Longwood and other shitholes in The Bronx, The Meatpacking District in Manhattan, or Times Square, and the parts of Brooklyn usually affected aren’t serviced by his hospital.

There are instances, though, when whatever’s going on in the shittier parts of the city reaches a boiling point and spills into his neighbourhood, or, worse, when the medical facilities in those neighbourhoods don’t have the capacity to deal with incidents of that magnitude.

Those are times when Bucky’s hospital goes into standby, waiting for patients brought in by ambulances, usually victims of explosions, mass casualty attacks, wounds caused by some sort of fucking magic.

Bucky hates the magic wounds the most, because they don’t teach that shit in school.

So he does his best to keep his head down, avoid any and all superhero business, and go about his daily life, content in the knowledge that he doesn’t give a shit about any of it so long as it stays out of his life and his Emergency Room.

The night the hospital goes into standby after reports of some sort of chaos in Hell’s Kitchen, Bucky can’t help but be a little relieved that he’s at the end of sixteen hours and legally unable to stick around to help. He’s exhausted, and he does his best to restock the rooms for the next shift and helps get things as ready as they possibly can be, before he ducks down the hall to grab his things and head home.

That’s when Frank walks by and tells him that they’ve got Clint waiting for a room just outside triage. Bucky’s not stupid enough to think that Clint appearing in his ER is mere coincidence.

If it’s not domestic abuse, then it’s gotta be something to do with heroes, especially coinciding with the shit show in Hell’s Kitchen. There’s no other explanation. Clint’s gotta be involved in something. He’s gotta be some sort of vigilante, some sort of hero -- he’s got the jawbone for it, the wide, muscular shoulders, the fucking fantastic arms.

He’s probably -- definitely -- some sort of hero.

Frank reassures him that it’s just some sort of cut, nothing too serious, and Bucky just… knows better. So he signs out and swings by triage, where Clint is curled up on a gurney, waiting for a room and someone with the time to look into what appears to be a simple contusion to his arm.

“Show me,” Bucky snaps, because he’s tense, it’s been a long day, he wants to go home, but first he’s going to make sure Clint’s still gonna be around when he comes back.

Clint, sitting on the gurney with clumsy bandages wrapped around his bicep, already bleeding through, blinks at him. He looks a little pale, a little pained, but relatively healthy compared to the shitshow around him.

“Oh, hey, Bucky,” he says, blinking slow. Probably in fucking shock. He holds his arm out. “I got shot a little.”

“You got shot,” Bucky echoes, blinking. “You got fucking _shot_?” 

Clint nods solemnly. “I did,” he says. “I did. It’s just a graze. No bullet stuck in it. But it won’t stop bleeding, I’ve been putting pressure on it for a few hours, but--”

“You got shot _a few hours ago_?” Bucky asks him. His voice goes a little shrill.

“Yeah,” Clint says, his voice a bit faint.

And Bucky realizes it’s the first time he’s been around Clint for more than 10 seconds without Clint hitting on him. 

“Jesus, Clint,” he says, pulling the bandages off. “I know it’s really fucking busy in here right now, but you’ve gotta tell the fucking triage nurse when you’ve been shot, there are _protocols_, I need to get you on a bed and get a doctor -- don’t pass out on me, okay?”

“Sure,” Clint says. “Sure, Bucky. Sure. I’m just -- it’s super cold in here today.”

“Because you’re going into shock, you complete idiot.”

Bucky gets the bandages off and grimaces. It’s a graze, but a deep one, and it’s gonna need stitches at the very least, but he knows most of the doctors are dealing with the critical cases coming in from the ambulance bay. Normally, given the gun shot, Clint would be a top priority, but who the fuck knows what’s coming in out of Hell’s Kitchen.

“What was it?” Bucky asks him, putting pressure on it. “What happened?”

“You should see the other guy,” Clint mumbles, slumping a little, forehead bumping against Bucky’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “You keep saying that. Lay down before you pass out.”

He carefully goes to help Clint lay back on the gurney and doesn’t even bitch about it, and now Bucky’s getting really worried -- even more so when Clint sucks in a startled, pained breath when his back makes contact with the pillow. His eyes fly open, dark and dilated with pain, and Bucky goes very, very still.

“Clint,” he says, calm. Clint just grimaces up at him and curls his injured arm against his chest. It’s started bleeding again, and Bucky puts pressure on it again, careful, because when he presses down, Clint bites back a cry of pain. “Where else are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing,” Clint tells him, and he probably even believes it. “It’s--”

Bucky turns him onto his side, carefully supporting his shoulder, and the back of his shirt is damp with blood, torn in places -- specifically over what appears to be a stab wound.

“Clint,” he says again, helpless. “What the hell.”

“No, no,” Clint tells him. His voice has started slurring. “No, it’s okay, it’s fine, Bucky, I’m fine, I just need -- need a bandaid on my arm and --”

“Someone knifed you in the back, Clint.”

He braces Clint’s shoulder and carefully tears at his shirt, easing it off his shoulder as Clint turns his head and blinks slowly up at him and says, “It’s fine, Buck. Guns are much scarier than knives.”

Bucky laughs; he can’t help it. It’s not a nice sound though, because something is catching painfully in his throat and he feels like he’s gonna puke.

“Yeah, that’s the issue here,” Bucky says, peeling the shirt away, pressing a gauze pad against the wound. “Wait here. Don’t move. You need a goddamn doctor.”

Clint hums in agreement and closes his eyes and Bucky’s covered in blood and his hands are shaking when he makes it back to triage, which has erupted in a careful, controlled sort of chaos. Everyone is busy with the patients from Hell’s Kitchen, but Clint’s bleeding out in the hallway.

There are patients all up and down the hallway being sorted into groups depending on the severity of their injury. It was some sort of gas line explosion, messy with contusions and broken bones and burns, but not as bad as it could be. The number of critical patients is relatively low, so it only takes a few minutes for Bucky to get Clint seen by a doctor and then slip away to the staff bathroom for a few minutes to duck his head down between his knees and breathe until he stops shaking.

Beds are at a premium but Clint ends up being admitted, stitched up and given a few units of blood. Bucky’s pretty sure he intends to sneak out at the earliest opportunity. It’s hospital protocol that gunshot victims have to have a debrief with the police, but they’re all a little busy dealing with the fallout from the explosion in Hell’s Kitchen.

So Bucky stays, hovering, helping with the other cases when he can, when Maria’s not looking because the union takes working over 16 hours really seriously. When Clint’s finally stitched up and left in recovery, sometime in the early hours of the morning, Bucky slips into his room.

Clint is just swinging his legs over the side of the bed, apparently making good on his escape plans.

“You know, I can handcuff you to that, if you want me to.”

“Promises, promises,” Clint says, almost without thinking, and Bucky can’t help a small, relieved smile.

“Get back in bed and I won’t tell Maria that you were trying to make a run for it,” Bucky tells him. “She’s scary when she’s pissed, Clint.”

“She’s scary when she’s not pissed,” Clint says, eyes wide. He pulls his legs back on the bed and blinks up at Bucky innocently. “I was just going pee.”

“Uh huh.” Bucky drops into the chair at Clint’s bedside. He’s exhausted -- he feels like he hasn’t managed to get Clint’s blood out from under his fingernails. “You doing okay?”

Clint shrugs and doesn’t even wince when it pulls at his arm, where a bandage covers his stitches. His pupils are wide in a way that suggests they gave him the good drugs.

Bucky studies him for a moment and then says, “So. So what happened? You never told me.”

“Nothing, really. Just… wrong place, wrong time.”

“In Hell’s Kitchen?”

Clint frowns, puzzled. “No? Just outside my place in Bed-Stuy.”

“So you had nothing to do with the superhero shit show in Hell’s Kitchen.” Bucky can’t help a feeling of disappointment, as if he honestly expected Clint to confess that he was some masked superhero vigilante.

“I don’t even -- something happened in Hell’s Kitchen? Sorry. I wasn’t -- why would I know anything about that?”

“You’re a pretty shitty liar,” Bucky tells him.

“In my defense, I’m on a shit ton of drugs,” Clint says, letting his eyes drift shut. “But I promise. I wasn’t. I was just -- I’m just. Wrong place. Wrong time. A mess.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky says, skeptical. “Well, do me a favour? Next time being in the wrong place at the wrong time gets you shot or fucking stabbed, don’t wait a few hours before you come to the goddamn hospital, okay?”

Clint’s eyes fly open and even dazed with massive pupils, they’re so blue, they shine. “Aww, Bucky,” he says, sweet and slurred with exhaustion and medication. “Didn’t know you cared.”

It’s a little too close to the truth -- that Bucky cares a little bit more than he should -- and normally, this would be when Bucky makes a quick and professional exit. But Clint’s smile is soft, crooked and sweet, and the lights are down low and Bucky’s not working right now anyway.

“Don’t like going home with your blood on my hands,” Bucky says, quiet and honest and a little more raw than he meant it to be.

“That’s the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me,” Clint says, solemn and with only the slightest hint of amusement lurking around the corners of his lips and in his eyes.

“Shut up,” Bucky says, comfortable only because he’s pretty sure Clint’s not going to remember a word of this. “You need to get some higher standards.”

“There’s so many better things that I could get all over you,” Clint mumbles, soft as he falls asleep.

“Clint,” Bucky says, simultaneously horrified and laughing and wanting to die, but Clint falls asleep before he can start listing other body fluids, and Bucky firmly tells himself that it’s for the best.

*

If Clint is a vigilante, he’s not a very good one. Bucky thinks someone ought to intervene, but it’s not on him to keep Clint out of danger. All he’s there for is to patch him up afterwards.

It’s too much -- Clint’s blood, his pale face, how faint his voice had been, combined with the steady stream of casualties coming in through the ambulance bay. He’s exhausted when he goes home and and it’s supposed to be his day off, but he’s on call in case they need extra hands.

They don’t call and he sleeps the entire day away, only waking in the late afternoon when Steve appears in his bedroom.

“I tried calling,” he says. He looks about as exhausted as Bucky feels, and Bucky knows he was out there, helping transport the victims to hospital.

“I’m fine,” Bucky tells him, shoving his head under a pillow and chasing after the sweet remains of sleep that are fading farther and farther away with every passing moment. “I’m sleeping, Steve.”

“You’ve been sleeping all day.”

“Didn’t get home til four.” He pushes the pillow away and rubs at his eyes and says, “Tough night.”

“Yeah.” Steve grimaces a little. “I know. So we were worried. Wanted to invite you over for dinner. Morgan’s spent the entire day drawing pictures to give you, to put on your fridge. And when you didn’t answer -- you know how anxious I get.”

There’s a crash from somewhere in his apartment and a little voice instantly starts shouting that it wasn’t her fault. Bucky blinks up at Steve, slow, a reluctant smile pulling at his lips. “Did you bring her?” he asks, suddenly given a reason to get out of bed. If anybody can ease the tightness in his chest, it’s Morgan.

“Brought them both,” Steve says. “And a whole bunch of pizza. We’re gonna have a pizza party and drink beer and watch _Paw Patrol_ until you feel better. Tony’s even put his phone on silent.”

Bucky should make a snarky comment about Stark, it’s what he’d do if he wasn’t feeling so tired, but all he manages is a weak smile, sliding out of bed. “You’re saints, all of you. I’m gonna shower, be right out.”

Morgan’s got his fridge covered in pictures scribbled in marker, stick figures holding hands and giant towers like the one she lives in. There’s her daddy and her papa and her Uncle Bucky and a shit ton of shapes she claims are kangaroos and raccoons and a whole bunch of lopsided hearts and Bucky isn’t ever going to throw them out.

He falls asleep again but it feels different -- softer and sweeter and a great deal more restful -- surrounded by his family, with Morgan curled up beside him.

*

In the morning, Stark takes Morgan off to school, and Steve drags Bucky out to their pancake place.

Bucky doesn’t intend to talk about anything specific, there’s enough shit going on at the hospital to explain away his mood, but he builds a tower out of little creamer packages while they wait for the waitress to bring their pancakes, and Bucky says, “I fucked up, Stevie.”

Automatically, Steve says, “I’m sure you did your best,” because he’s loyal as fuck and Bucky doesn’t deserve him.

He closes his eyes and laughs a little and says, “I didn’t try as hard as I should have.”

“What happened?”

Bucky takes a deep breath because he knows if he tells anybody about this, that makes it real. It’s one thing for the gossips at the hospital to claim they know about his feelings, it’s a whole different thing to admit to it. But it’s sitting heavily in his chest, and something’s gotta be done.

So he tells Steve about Clint, who injures himself regularly, who brightens up when Bucky steps into the room. He tells Steve about switching cases whenever Clint shows up in the ER, about taking care of his dog in the memorial garden, about Clint bleeding all over Bucky’s hands two nights before. He confesses that he thinks Clint’s into something dangerous, that he’s one of the idiots running around trying to take out bad guys, but he’s really bad at it and that’s why he keeps getting hurt.

Steve listens, patient and quiet, sipping his coffee, and waits until Bucky runs out of words before he says, “But he’s a patient, Buck.”

“I know.” 

Their pancakes arrive and Bucky is so grateful for the distraction. Maybe they can change the subject, maybe --

“So are you in love with him?”

Bucky chokes on his pancakes and, when he can speak, says, “I don’t know him well enough for that, Jesus.”

Steve watches him closely, looking solemn. “But you want to,” he says.

Bucky winces, tries to take a deep breath, scowls when it’s shaky and weak. “I just… Stevie. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m lonely. It’s fucking stupid, but maybe -- I just -- I go on that fucking app you made me get and there’s all sorts of people looking to hook up and all I keep thinking is that I’d rather be taking Clint’s fucking blood pressure than touching any of them. I go on the dates you set up for me and all I can think about is how fucking bored I am, and how I only get to see him for minutes at a time but he always makes me laugh. And I know it’s stupid and it won’t ever be anything and that… it just… it _hurts_ and I hate it and he almost bled out, Steve. His blood was all over -- I just -- what am I supposed to do with that?”

“There isn’t a rule against dating a former patient,” Steve tries. “Maybe you could --”

“He’s a patient every two weeks. He’ll never be a former patient -- not when he’s running around getting into superhero business.”

“But are you sure --”

“I can’t -- I nearly lost my shit when he got just a little hurt the other night. You know those heroes never last long. I can’t, Stevie.”

Steve smiles sadly down at his pancakes and shrugs. “It’s just, I’ve never seen you… want someone like this. It’s nice. I just, I want you to be happy, and I--”

“Could never be happy with a superhero.”

Steve sighs. “Okay, Buck. So then, what do you want to do?”

“Get over him. Avoid the shit out of him til I forget to miss him.” He grimaces. “Go on dates with other people until I find someone who makes me laugh as much, I guess.”

“Dates.” Steve brightens. “I can help with dates, Buck. There’s this guy at Stark Industries, I think you’ll really like him…”

Bucky settles in to listen to Steve prattle on about yet another perfect date he’s found working for Stark, and firmly tells himself that getting over Clint Barton is for the best -- the best for his job, for his peace of mind, and for his heart.

Eventually, he even starts to believe it.

*

Avoiding Clint isn’t all that hard, when it comes down to it. The entire damned hospital seems intent on letting Bucky know when he’s in the building, and now he just… makes sure he doesn’t get those charts. Doesn’t switch to get Clint on his rotation. Doesn’t make a point of seeking him out. Takes early or late lunches to avoid him, and doesn’t sit with Scott anymore when he sees him in the cafeteria because he doesn’t want to hear anymore about what’s going on with Clint’s bones.

Clint’s bones are better off without Bucky and Bucky is better off without them and that’s what he tells himself firmly and confidently as he hides in the bathroom whenever Clint is in the hallways.

He goes on the dates Steve sets up for him, and does his best to pretend to be interested, to actually _be_ interested. He meets up with a few guys from Grindr and quickly realizes that Scott was right and Grindr isn’t exactly for those seeking loving and committed relationships, which he realized with despair, he is.

It’s Steve’s fucking fault. Steve went off and found himself a happily ever after and made Bucky think maybe he deserved one too.

But everyone knows superheroes never get happy endings.

So he stays busy. Work and sleep were enough for him once, so he tries to pretend they’re enough for him now. He takes extra shifts, spends his days stocking rooms and helping patients and handing out stickers to the littler ones (and the older ones who look like they might need a little encouragement before their shots). He stocks the nursing station up with the good pens and doesn’t even bitch too much when they’re all missing two days later. He helps Hill with patient files, he volunteers as a test subject in the cafeteria kitchen, he comes in early and leaves late and, for two entire months, does all of that without running into Clint once.

And he doesn’t miss him. Not even a little. Because he’s always been good at lying to himself.

He’s rearranging the linen storage one day, when all his efforts fall apart around him, and he gets paged to the nursing station for a phone call.

It’s gotta be an emergency call, he knows, as soon as his name is called over the intercom. His family know not to call him at work, and generally just text him telling him to call when he can, and no one really likes to tie up hospital lines unless it can’t be helped.

He hurries to the station to answer as quickly as he can, even if a heavy pit of dread has settled low in his gut, sure that something terrible has happened to someone he cares about.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Buck. It’s Steve.” Steve sounds strange, a little off, and before Bucky can panic that something’s happened to him, he says quickly, “I’m fine, I just. Calling because we’re on our way in and I wanted to give you time to… switch rotations or wards or whatever.”

“Why, Stevie? What happened?”

There’s quiet for a moment, and then Steve says, “It’s Clint, Bucky. He’s been hit by a car.”

Steve says other things, but Bucky doesn’t hear them.

It never occurs to him to hide, to switch wards, to find something else to do so he’s unavailable when Steve brings Clint in. Instead, he waits for them down at the ambulance bay, anxiety nearly making him sick.

He’s seen Clint in so many stages of injured, and each time, he’s walked himself in through the front doors of the Emergency Room. The fact that he’s coming in an ambulance this time has got to mean that his injuries are catastrophic, and Bucky doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if Clint doesn’t make it, but suddenly he regrets all the fucking weeks he spent avoiding the shit out of him instead of telling him to stop getting hurt so Bucky can ask him on a fucking date.

The rest doesn’t matter anymore.

Steve, when he hops out of the driver seat, doesn’t look surprised to see him, just concerned. 

“Bucky,” he starts. “He’s okay, Bucky, he’s just --”

But Bucky doesn’t hear it, not until Sam pops the doors open from the inside and they’re pulling the stretcher out, and Clint is blinking up at him from where they’ve got him strapped down with a neck brace on.

His eyes brighten instantly. “Bucky,” he says, beaming. “Steve said you weren’t working today, I asked, and he said --”

“I’m here,” Bucky tells him, taking Clint’s hand without thinking when Clint wiggles it loose from the straps holding him down and reaches for him. “Of course I’m here, I’m always here, what happened?”

He’s doing his best, looking for injuries, but all he can see is Clint’s pale face, the flush on his cheeks that wasn’t there until he saw Bucky waiting for him, and the straps holding him still.

“Got in the way of a car,” he says with a grimace. “I told them I was fine but I couldn’t walk so they called an ambulance and Steve --” he shoots Steve a glare -- “said I might have damaged my neck or my spine or whatever. I can _feel_ my legs, they just don’t wanna hold me up, I’m fine, I just need a rest and a beer and, oh, Bucky, probably your phone number too.” He flashes a winning grin.

Bucky’s not satisfied -- there could be any number of internal injuries -- and he keeps pace alongside the stretcher as Sam pushes it through the bay doors.

Steve grabs Bucky by the shoulder before he can follow Clint inside, and his hand slips away. “You okay, Buck?”

“How did you know it was him?” Bucky asks. His heart is still racing and it’s gonna take a while for the adrenaline to calm down, even though Clint’s not half as injured as he could be.

Steve hesitates. “He -- we got him in the ambulance and he kept asking if Nurse Bucky was working,” he says. “And his name was Clint. I assumed…”

“Do you think -- do you think he’s got super healing? Is that why he keeps getting hurt so badly but hasn’t died yet? Maybe he --” Bucky runs his shaking hand through his hair and swears. “I can’t do this, Steve.”

“I know.” Steve watches him for a moment and then says, carefully, “Maybe he’s not -- maybe he’s just really clumsy, Bucky. Are you sure you can’t --”

“I can’t,” Bucky says.

And then Clint shoots him a panicky look from inside and reaches for him again and Bucky forgets all about why he can’t do this and goes inside to hold his hand.

“Hit by a car,” Bucky echoes, quiet, while Sam and Steve finish up the paperwork and they work on getting him a bed. “Seriously?”

Clint looks around wildly, as best he can with a neck brace on, and then tugs at Bucky’s hand until Bucky leans closer. “Bucky,” he says, desperately. “Bucky, listen, I need you, I need -- can you do me a favour? Bucky.” He seems to get distracted, and now that he’s this close, Bucky can see his eyes are too dark, not focusing properly -- maybe a concussion.

And then Bucky forgets all of his medical training and all his concern because Clint’s reaching up with the hand he managed to wiggle free and touching Bucky’s jaw and saying, “Shit, Bucky, you’re so pretty.”

“Clint.” Bucky’s not blushing. He’s too furious at Clint for getting hit by a car, too concerned about the concussion and possible spinal injury, if his face is flushed, it’s from rage.

Clint blinks and then seems to remember whatever it is he’s panicking about because he says, “Oh, shit, Bucky. I need you. Listen. Listen, they’re gonna take me for X-Rays, probably, and I can’t -- I just. Here. Here, take this for me, it isn’t safe.”

And then he fumbles with his hoodie, tugging it up and free from the gurney straps, and pulls a tiny, muddy, angry kitten out of his goddamn pocket, holding it out for Bucky to take.

“What,” Bucky says, “The fuck.”

“Couldn’t let it get run over,” Clint says, and the kitten hisses at Bucky and swipes at him with a tiny claw. It’s a muddy colour, its fur matted, and it’s the smallest kitten Bucky’s ever seen. “Couldn’t leave it behind when they took me.” He shoots Steve and Sam a quick look. “They don’t know. Please, Bucky, keep it safe for me.”

“You. You got hit by a car saving a kitten,” Bucky says, and he’s angry -- he’s so, so fucking angry.

But under all of that, he kinda wants to cry. Of course Clint got hit by a car saving a furious kitten. What else would Bucky expect him to do?

There’s more to Clint than his pretty face and his prettier arms and his inability to stop flirting with anybody who so much as looks at him, and that’s the problem. That’s the part Bucky can’t seem to stop thinking about -- the sweet and soft part that puts him in harm’s way to save a motherfucking kitten.

“_Please_,” Clint whispers, like he thinks there’s any way Bucky’s gonna be able to say no to him.

So he takes the kitten and hides it in his sleeve and lets them wheel Clint off to X-Ray without following.

The kitten wraps itself around his wrist and sinks its teeth and claws into him with a furious rage that Bucky can’t help but identify with.

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he takes the damned thing home with him.

*

Bucky stops at a vet because he doesn’t know the first thing about keeping kittens alive, and this one seems altogether too small and too angry and too fragile to be trusted to stay alive until Clint’s out of the hospital.

He leaves the vet with a whole list of instructions because the kitten is too small to be without its mother and they haven’t got any mother cats that might accept an orphan, so he agrees to keep the ridiculous thing alive as best he can with the droppers and special formula they give him.

It’s hell. He did not sign up for this.

He feeds the kitten as soon as he gets home, and gets a bunch of bloody wounds in the process, before Bucky finally coaxes him to eat enough formula that he gets sleepy and slow, which is essential for the next step, which is bathing him.

He washes him in the sink with the mild soap the vet recommended, gently coaxing the mud out of his fur, surprised when it rinses away and leaves a soaking wet and bright white kitten behind. Bucky dries him with towels and then freezes in shock and discomfort when the kitten drags himself up Bucky’s sleeve, up to his shoulder, and curls up against his neck.

He can feel the kitten purring, vibrating softly against his neck, and Bucky has no idea what to do with this, so he stays very still and lets him sleep and turns on the TV, watching a Storage Wars marathon late into the night, until the kitten wakes and starts to cry, hungry again.

He’s still alive by morning and not half as angry and Bucky can’t help but feel a small, fragile sense of accomplishment. Despite the bandaids all up and down his forearm, he’s kept this tiny kitten alive and now he’s not gonna have to call Clint up and tell him that he let him down.

Which is not his main concern, at all.

Bucky slips the tiny kitten into his pocket and goes to the pet store later that day, coming home with toys and cat nip and litter boxes and dishes and a fancy cat bed that the kitten never sleeps in. He doesn’t name him, though, because it’s not his kitten and he’s not getting attached, not even after he spends the rest of the day playing with the kitten.

And then the next, and the next, and the next.

It takes a week before Bucky realized that he might be a little attached and it’s a catastrophe and he’s gotta get rid of the cat because it’s not his cat to keep, but it’s so fucking nice coming home and being greeted by a chirpy kitten, so nice having to hop a little on his way to the coffee pot in the morning because the kitten is chasing his feet, so nice having a reason to knock on his neighbour’s door, if only to ask her if she please please please wouldn’t mind looking after and feeding the kitten while he’s at work.

He doesn’t have any time at all to be lonely or to sleep through his days when he’s too busy chasing after a kitten.

He keeps expecting Clint to show up at the hospital demanding his kitten back, but Clint doesn’t. Bucky looked at his file, he knows Clint was only kept overnight, only suffered contusions and bruising because he’s either the luckiest asshole on the planet or he’s got super healing.

But Clint doesn’t show up and Bucky gets more and more attached and doesn’t realize it’s a problem until he meets Steve for beer one night and spends the first two hours telling him all about the amazing and adorable things his still nameless kitten has been up to.

Steve’s smile is small and pleased, but he still looks a little concerned when he says, “What if Clint wants it back?”

Bucky falters. He knows, on some level, that the kitten isn’t his to keep. “You think he will?”

“I think a guy’s not gonna throw himself in front of a car to save a kitten he’s not at least a little attached to,” Steve says gently.

“Bullshit,” Bucky tells him. “You’d throw yourself in front of a car for a cat you actively disliked.”

Which is true. But Steve Rogers isn’t a standard to which average people could compare themselves, a fact which Bucky is very, very much aware of.

He’s gotta give Clint his kitten back.

He’s just gotta wait for Clint to come back to the hospital first.

And he’s kinda sorta been thinking that maybe, next time he sees Clint, maybe he should… should say something. About his feelings.

But he’s not gonna tell Steve about all of that -- he’s still not sure how to word it or how to explain that those few minutes he spent waiting for Steve to drive up with Clint in the back of his ambulance made Bucky think that maybe there were worse things than navigating his way to the courage it would take to ask a repeat patient if maybe he wanted to get a beer together sometime. 

Maybe it was okay to admit that he was lonely. Maybe it was okay to stop looking for something he’s pretty sure he already found.

Except Clint doesn’t come back.

Bucky doesn’t keep track of the days, at first. The anxiety he felt about seeing Clint has relaxed into something easier since he’s decided that maybe Steve was right before -- maybe they can make this work. They both know people who’ve dated former patients without problems, and it’s worth trying.

But then the days turn to weeks without Clint showing up -- and even if Bucky was busy, or off for the day, he’d still hear about it, from Frank Castle in triage or from Scott or from any number of nosey hospital staff. 

Clint’s just gone.

A month and a half after Clint gets hit by a car rescuing the kitten -- who still hasn’t got a name because Bucky doesn’t want to be presumptuous and give him one -- some shit goes down in Hell’s Kitchen that makes the explosion from before seem minor. The entire city is shaken up, no one seems to know what’s happening, all they know is that none of the neighbourhood heroes have been seen since and rumours are flying that at least a handful of them didn’t survive whatever shitshow kept the hospitals and first responders on high alert.

And Clint doesn’t fucking show up.

“I think he’s dead,” Bucky says finally to Scott over lunch some time after Hell’s Kitchen goes to hell again, interrupting what had been a very impassioned monologue about how the funny bone isn’t even a bone at all. 

Scott blinks at him. “Uhh,” he says. “What?”

“Clint. Dead.”

He brightens. “Barton’s got amazing bones,” he says. “I haven’t seen that many untreated juvenile breaks that healed that cleanly before -- did you know, sometimes healed bones are stronger than they were before they were broken?”

“Cool,” Bucky says. “D’you think Clint’s got super healing? If he was involved in whatever the fuck happened in Hell’s Kitchen, could he be holed up somewhere, healing? Does he need help? Should I -- should we look for him? Call the cops?”

“Whoa, okay, you’re gonna have to slow down here. Why d’you think he’s dead? Why do you think he’s got super healing? And why the hell would Clint Barton, who can’t keep himself unwounded at the best of times, get mixed up in superhero bullshit?”

“Think about it,” Bucky says. He knows he sounds shrill, a little high-strung. He hasn’t been sleeping, has sat awake at night watching the news on repeat and searching the internet for any sign of Clint. “He always gets hurt. Always. If he’s not black and blue, he’s shot or stabbed or throwing himself in front of moving vehicles. He can’t -- normal people aren’t that clumsy, Scott. There needs to be something else going on. And it was a pattern, right? He was here every week or two, like clockwork, with some injury and some flimsy excuse and it wasn’t domestic violence and it had to be _something_ and now he’s gone.”

“Well,” Scott says, more carefully than he usually says things. “Well, he did mention, when I was doing his X-Rays after he got hit by that car, that he hadn’t seen you in two months despite asking around for you and that he wasn’t stupid and he knew you were avoiding him and he was doing his very best not to sexually harass you in your place of work because he’s not a creep. So.”

Bucky blinks at him. “That’s not -- I was trying not to be the creep. I didn’t think he was the creep.”

Scott shrugs. “He was pretty clear about it.”

“Fuck,” Bucky says, eyes wide. “Shit. He’s -- he thought I thought he was a creep and now he’s probably dead.”

“Listen, far be it for me to get involved in your personal life -- I mean, I’ve been rooting for you two crazy kids for ages, trust me, there’s no one out there more invested in you two dealing with the sexual tension you’ve got going on than me. But I think maybe… maybe you ought to go home, Barnes. Have a nap. And a smoothie. Some vitamins. You’re looking a little pale.”

Bucky doesn’t _need_ to go home. He needs another disgusting hospital coffee to keep him awake, he needs to finish his shift, and he needs to find Clint.

“And, when you wake up, if you’re still all torn up about it, grab his number from his file and call him.”

In his defense, Bucky dismisses that idea -- it violates so many protocols and ethics. But it takes him about twenty seconds of seriously considering it before he shakes his head.

*

Bucky goes looking.

It’s a stupid idea. He doesn’t think it’ll actually lead to anything, but he’s gotta do something. Anxiety is making it hard to focus and maybe if he exhausts himself, he’ll be able to sleep and figure out what to do.

So he walks around Bed-Stuy, where Clint claimed to live, looking for one-eyed dogs or pizza places that might attract them. The sun goes down and he keeps walking, looking for trouble, because if Clint really is the superhero keeping Bed-Stuy safe, than he’s probably gonna appear right in the nick of time when Bucky gets himself into trouble.

Bucky gets into trouble -- two angry kids in tracksuits demanding his wallet -- and no masked heroes with blonde bedhead appear. Instead, he goes home a little bruised and missing his wallet and even more convinced than ever that Clint is dead.

It’s the only thing that makes sense.

*

A strange blue vortex opens up in the sky over Manhattan the next day and Bucky is so done with superhero bullshit, that he manages to ignore it until the aliens come through.

“What the fuck,” he whispers, standing at his window in Brooklyn, staring at the metal monsters that look massive, even from this far away.

He can see the destruction, smell the smoke, and part of him imagines he can hear the screams of those trapped in the buildings and on the streets, but of course he can’t. It’s a vivid throwback to 9-11 and it makes him want to puke.

Instead, he gets dressed. His shift doesn’t start for another six hours, but he’s going in early. They’re going to need all the help they can get, judging by the amount of destruction -- and the things have only been pouring out of the sky for ten minutes.

He wonders how long it’ll take the city’s superheroes to deal with this shit and carefully doesn’t wonder if Clint’ll be involved, or what’ll happen if there are too many monsters and not enough heroes.

He’s got a role to play and it ain’t standing on the front lines.

And then his phone rings as he’s making his way out the door. It’s Steve and he answers while locking up.

He goes very still and very cold when Steve starts to talk, because he hasn’t heard Steve sound that off-balance and terrified since the day of Bucky’s accident, and he never, ever wanted to hear it again.

“Buck,” he says. “Bucky, it’s Morgan. Can you get Morgan? I’m on shift and I can’t get through to the school, the landline’s down, I can’t -- there are so many injured, and we have to transport them out of Manhattan, but the things are spreading to the other boroughs and there are reports that they’ve already starting tearing Brooklyn apart -- I should leave, I should go get her, Buck, the streets are torn up and I can’t get through.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, keeping his voice careful and calming and not letting any indication of how hard his hands are shaking. “Do your job. I’ll get her. I’ll keep her safe.”

He can hear Steve let out a relieved rush of air. “Thank you,” he says. “Stay safe.”

“You too.”

Morgan’s school is a twenty minute walk on a good day, but this is far from that. Even though whatever fucking monsters haven’t made it to this neighbourhood yet, people are already panicking and trying to evacuate, turning the streets into a gridlock. People are screaming at the slightest provocation, from slamming doors to backfiring engines, and getting into violent scuffles on the sidewalk.

And Bucky doesn’t have time for any of that.

He heads down the street at a quick jog, and the closer he gets to her school, the more panicky people seem to be.

Still, he doesn’t see any of the sky monsters until he’s only a few blocks away, and even then, the robot creature is lying in the street, twitching in a shower of sparks before going still.

Bucky starts running faster.

He begins to see damage as he rounds the corner to the school -- signs of heavy impacts on the taller buildings, scorch marks still smoking.

And the school is in ruins.

Bucky takes the fence at a run, doesn’t slow for the mangled remains of the playground, and doesn’t stop until he’s standing in the middle of what’s left of the school, shattered remains of the main lobby.

He can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t fucking call Steve up and tell him that Morgan’s not here and neither is the goddamn school -- and then he hears the distant sound of an accoustic guitar and an offkey voice he recognizes singing Baby Shark in the broken remains of what used to be the very end of the eastern wing of the school.

“Morgan!” he shouts, as he climbs over the broken wall and picks his way towards the music, which sounds as out of place among the destruction as the screams from people fleeing the army of monsters coming closer. 

The music stops just as he ducks under a slab of concrete to find himself in three-quarters of a kindergarten classroom, where Morgan -- face coated in dust with wide eyes and a lopsided ponytail -- stares at him where she sits with her legs crossed on a filthy storytime rug.

And beside her, his own face filthy with dirt and blood and a _Paw Patrol_ bandaid over a nose that’s dark with old, healing bruises, is Clint Barton, holding an acoustic guitar.

“Uncle Bucky!” Morgan shrieks and promptly bursts into tears as she throws herself up, over a miniature table, and into Bucky’s arms with enough force to nearly knock him over.

Bucky steadies himself and catches her, holding tight, and stares at Clint who mouths “Uncle Bucky,” and looks just about as stunned as Bucky feels.

“Uncle Bucky,” Morgan sobs against his shoulder, twisting her hands in his shirt and clinging. “The school fell down.”

“Yeah, I see that, nugget,” he says, trying to keep his voice soothing. “It’s alright, I’ll keep you safe until your daddy can come get you, okay?”

She pulls away and sniffles, tears and snot making a mess of the dirt on her face, and says, “Mr. B kept me safe from the space whales.”

Clint sets the guitar aside and gets up, wincing as he does, and Bucky’s eyes narrow, looking for injuries other than the one that’s still sluggishly bleeding on the side of his head and the nose that looks like it was broken at least a week before.

“Mr. B,” he echoes, slow. “Your teacher.”

Clint waves awkwardly, shyly, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking helpless and lost and somehow still stupidly charming. “Yeah,” he says. “Uh. Hi, Uncle Bucky.”

“I thought you were dead,” Bucky snaps.

Clint blinks at him and then looks around at the partially collapsed classroom and says, “Well, I mean. I ducked?”

“No, I mean. I mean, you haven’t -- I haven’t seen you in weeks -- I looked for you! I got mugged for you! I was going to find Daredevil and ask him if he knew you!”

Clint looks, if possible, even more lost than before. “Why would Daredevil know me?”

“You --” Bucky’s shoulders slump. “You broke your nose and didn’t come to me to fix it.”

Clint touches his nose self-consciously. “Oh. Well. It was just -- just a little broken, and --”

Somewhere far too close, there’s a metallic, sharp shriek that’s probably a motherfucking space whale, and Morgan starts crying even harder.

“Shouldn’t you be dealing with this?” Bucky asks, much more shrill than he’d like.

“Dealing with -- why would I be dealing with this?” Clint asks him. “Are you okay? You look like you’re freaking out.”

Bucky closes his eyes, breathing for a moment, and then says, “We’ve gotta get out of here, find shelter. Where are the other kids?” He grabs his phone, sending Steve a quick text that he’s got Morgan and is finding shelter. He leaves out the bit about her school being destroyed.

He didn’t imagine he’d spend this afternoon parading a school full of children to safety while space whales invaded from above, but that’s what living in New York with all its superhero bullshit did for you.

“We sent them home,” Clint says with an easy shrug. He winces at the movement. “When the invasion started, we evacuated the other kids, sent them home on the bus, but Morgan comes  
by town car, and we couldn’t get in touch with her dads, and we didn’t want them showing up and for her not to be here, so I volunteered to stay, except then one of them blew up the school…” He trails off helplessly.

“Jesus,” Bucky says. “Do any of you heroes have any sense of self-preservation? Morgan, honey, get on my back and hold on, okay? We can’t stay here and we’re gonna have to go fast to get through the streets to somewhere safe. Maybe the Subway tunnels.”

“Heroes?” Clint echoes, grabbing a first aid kit from the classroom closet and then following Bucky as he makes his way through the rubble, Morgan clinging to his back like a monkey.

There’s very little time to talk but lots of time to think as Bucky leads the way through the ruined streets, which are nearly deserted by now. Everyone else has managed to find shelter somewhere, it seems, but the subway entrance is collapsed and he doesn’t trust any of the other buildings in this neighbourhood. Space whales have no respect for structural integrity.

Clint keeps up gamely enough, and Bucky keeps expecting him to dart off with some flimsy excuse, off to take part in whatever battle is currently being waged over -- aw, fuck it. Stark Tower. Of course it’s fucking Stark Tower.

But Clint doesn’t. And they don’t see any aliens at all --

Until one appears out of nowhere, dropping from the sky with a sharp bank and sending a beam of blue light right at them.

Bucky reacts instinctively, lifting his metal arm up to deflect it, entirely convinced it’s a hopeless cause and they’re about to be incinerated -- 

Instead, the beam reflects off his arm and catches the alien right between the eyes, sending it flying into a nearby building, and behind him, Clint hisses, “Jesus Christ.”

Bucky has no time to see if Clint’s alright. He can hear more aliens coming, and he ducks into the shattered remains of a bodega. Maybe, if the aliens think this building is already ruined, they won’t come searching for more to destroy.

The basement also serves as a storage room, Bucky realises, as he helps Clint drop down into it before lowering Morgan and following her down.

At least they’ve got a bunch of canned goods and twinkies to survive on if they get trapped down here.

Most of the basement is sheltered beneath a giant concrete slab, other than the narrow opening they squeezed through, and it’s about the best shelter they’re gonna find without running into more of whatever the fuck is attacking New York.

He and Clint work together to set up a cosy corner for Morgan, piling up their coats and sitting near her, and Clint distracts her with rhyming stories that are familiar enough to remind Bucky of his own childhood, until the exhaustion grows too much for her and she falls asleep, curled up against Bucky’s side.

It’s growing late and the sun has shifted so barely any light at all filters down through the broken building, and now that Morgan’s asleep, Bucky finally lets himself study Clint in the low light.

“You don’t have to stay with us,” he says, because he still doesn’t know why the fuck Clint’s still here.

Clint had been rummaging through the shelves, taking inventory, he’d claimed, but now he goes very, very still before turning to look at Bucky.

“You want me to go?” he asks, voice trembling a little. “I mean, I can. It’s just. I don’t know where -- my place is pretty far, but I can find shelter somewhere else if you don’t want --”

“I mean, if you need to go fight aliens or whatever. We’ll be safe here, until it’s done.”

Clint picks his way over the broken shelves and fallen bags of chips, and settles down carefully beside Bucky’s other side, away from where Morgan is sleeping. He rummages around for a moment and then there’s the hiss of a match being struck. Clint lights a small, apple scented candle and sets it on the floor nearby, casting his face in a warm glow that flickers along the cracked and crumbling foundation walls.

“Bucky,” he says, quiet. “I’m not sure why you think I’d have anything to do with fighting a frankly terrifying army of space whales.”

Bucky turns to look at him. He studies him for a moment -- his dirty face, his drying blood, his nearly healed nose. “I know what you are,” he says.

“Uhm,” Clint says, cocking his head, sending an untidy lock of hair falling into his eyes. He brushes it aside impatiently. “A kindergarten teacher?”

“A hero.”

Clint chokes on what could be a snort. “A what? No, Buck--”

“I’m not an idiot,” Bucky tells him. “There are too many injuries -- and badly healed bone breaks. You got shot, Clint. And _stabbed_. You got hit by a _car_, there’s no other explanation, you have to be a hero, no one can have that little self-preservation, no one can be that accident prone, you have to be a hero, it’s the only --”

Clint’s eyes light up. “The kitten,” he says. “Steve says you’re taking such good care of him, what did you name him?”

Bucky blinks. “What? Steve… Steve said what?”

Because of course Steve knows that Clint, the guy Bucky’s been in love with for months, is Morgan’s kindergarten teacher who moonlights as a superhero. And he never told Bucky.

“You know Steve,” Bucky says, feeling all kinds of numb and betrayed.

Clint frowns. “Of course I -- he’s Morgan’s dad, and I -Bucky. You look upset, why are you upset?”

“Because I looked for you! You stopped coming to the hospital and I looked everywhere for you. I thought you were dead. I thought -- And Steve didn’t tell me!”

Clint licks his lips, shifting on his knees and looking nervous. “Bucky,” he starts, before hesitating. “Bucky, why’d you look for me?”

“Because I --”

Bucky is a fucking professional. Bucky doesn’t have crushes on his patients and he doesn’t pine after them and he doesn’t search the gutters for them when they stop showing up in his ER. He doesn’t panic that they’re dead and miss them when they’re gone.

Except maybe this one time.

“Because I missed you,” he says finally, quiet and defeated.

Clint’s smile is shy and uncertain and burns more brightly than the candle. “You did?”

“Of course I did, you asshole.”

Clint laughs and then tries to smother the sound with one hand. “I didn’t know Steve knew you at all til I got hit by that car and he picked me up in his ambulance. I kept asking if you were working and he got all suspicious and said he knew you and then lectured me on workplace harassment, which I thought was him warning me off, so I got kinda sad about it, and then he said that maybe, if I stopped showing up in the ER every two weeks, you’d be able to give me your number because I wouldn’t be your patient anymore.” His eyes get wide and he says earnestly, “I’ve been trying really hard, Bucky.”

Bucky closes his eyes and says, “I’m gonna kill Steve.” He takes a deep, quiet breath. “And I haven’t named the cat because I kept waiting for you to show up and want it back.”

Clint’s quiet for a moment, but Bucky can hear him shifting, settling in against the wall, near enough that Bucky can feel his body heat against his arm. He sounds tired, strained with pain, when he says, “Of course you can keep him, Bucky. Give him a fucking name. I wouldn’t -- he was never mine, I just found him, and saved him, and if he finds a home with you, that’s the best possible situation. And I’m not -- I swear I’m not a hero or a vigilante or anything, either.”

“You got shot,” Bucky reminds him, turning to look at him. “And stabbed. Come into the light so I can see your head wound, I think it’s stopped bleeding. Where else do you hurt?” He reaches for the first aid kit Clint has carried all this way, digging through it with the hand that’s not wrapped around Morgan, keeping her warm.

Clint shuffles closer and, as Bucky uses an alcohol wipe to clean up the blood, says, “There were these assholes lurking around my neighbourhood, scaring old ladies and charging huge amounts of money for bullshit protection. So I stopped it, and got stabbed a little. And shot a little. And also somehow won a shitty apartment building in a card game -- they’re the fuckers who hurt Lucky, and I stole Lucky from them, that’s when it all went to hell. They didn’t like that. But I’m not a hero. I swear, I’ve got nothing to do with heroes.”

Bucky sighs, gently touching the skin just below the shallow wound near Clint’s temple. It doesn’t look too deep and probably doesn’t need stitches. “Of course it started with a dog,” he says. But maybe -- maybe -- if Clint isn’t a superhero, then a neighbourhood punk protecting blind dogs and little old ladies and teaching kindergarten fit just as well.

And he’s really fuckin’ glad Clint’s not mixed up in all that superhero nonsense.

“Don’t worry,” Clint adds in a rush, turning to make earnest eye contact with Bucky, and they’re so, so close now -- Bucky can’t help the way his gaze drifts down to Clint’s mouth, just a little, before he licks his own lips and looking away quickly. “They haven’t messed with me or any of my neighbours since Nat took care of them.”

Bucky looks back at him, suspicious. “Nat?”

And Clint shifts awkwardly and says, “My shoulder’s stiff,” he says suddenly, quickly, and Bucky hasn’t been friends with Steve this long without learning to recognize a clumsy attempt at deflection when he sees it. “The roof started falling and I managed to block most of the debris from hitting Morgan, but a big chunk hit my shoulder, and I think I sprained something, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got some cracked ribs, and --”

“Who’s Nat?”

Clint curses and closes his eyes, wrinkling his nose before abruptly seeming to remember that it was fucking broken. “Nat… Nat’s the one who shoved my nose back,” he says miserably. “She -- you’re much gentler.” He opens his eyes and looks at Bucky beseechingly and says, “She’s my best friend. She’s probably responsible for keeping me alive this long. Used to do all my stitching up and popping my shoulder back into joint and scolding me for whatever shit I got myself into, before she was busy one night and I had to drag myself to the ER and met just about the prettiest nurse I ever saw.”

“Clint,” Bucky says, exasperated.

“Well, okay. Okay, it’s possible that Nat’s Black Widow and probably up on Stark Tower fighting with whatever other superheroes she managed to put together to stop this alien invasion, but I swear to god, Bucky, _I’m_ not a superhero. I’m just a really clumsy kindergarten teacher with terrible luck, and I’ve been trying _really_ hard not to come to the ER so I wouldn’t be your patient anymore so can I please, please have your number because --”

Bucky kisses him. He can’t help it. It’s the candle light and the darkness and the possible apocalypse and the adrenaline rush of finding out that Clint was alive and wasn’t a motherfucking superhero and wanted Bucky’s number enough to actually try to keep himself out of trouble -- for all that it didn’t seem to work.

It’s sweet and awkward and tastes of plaster dust and sugar and something deep in Bucky’s chest relaxes, slow and steady. He keeps it careful, because Morgan is sleeping and and the angle is awkward and Clint is injured, but Clint doesn’t seem at all concerned with his own body, just pushes closer and deepens the kiss and when he twists without thinking, and Bucky can taste the muffled sound of pain he makes, so he pulls back.

“Let me see your ribs,” he says, clearing his throat when his voice comes out a little rough.

“Just wanna get my shirt off?” Clint asks, eyes bright despite whatever pain he’s in.

“I’ve gotten your shirt off plenty of times,” Bucky tells him, while helping him gently tug it up over his head, careful when Clint can’t help the way his breath catches.

There are already nasty bruises forming, and he runs his hand over them gently, feeling the bone beneath and coaxing Clint through deep breaths, moving his arm to test range of motion, and then Bucky says quietly, “Just bruises, I think, but you’ll probably need an x-ray. Scott’s gonna be really excited, he’s missed you too.”

And then Bucky realizes that his hand is still on Clint’s side and they’re still so close, the shadows growing longer as it gets dark outside, the air thick with the scent of apple and the flickering candle flame.

“I really, really like you,” Clint says, soft like a secret.

And Bucky rattles off his phone number, easy, which makes Clint laugh even as he leans in, much more carefully, to kiss him again.

*

Eventually, the sounds of battle slow and then stop, and the sounds of emergency crews fill the leftover silence. 

Bucky’s got half an hour to make it to the hospital for work, and he climbs out of their basement sanctuary cradling a sleeping Morgan and makes his way carefully down the street, Clint staying close and holding Bucky’s hand as he finally answers the half a dozen missed calls he got from Nat while he was too busy kissing Bucky to check his phone.

Bucky’s a better friend -- he sent Steve four texts between kisses, reassuring him that yes, yes, yes they were safe -- hiding from the aliens with Morgan’s kindergarten teacher. He also didn’t give up his best friend’s super secret superhero identity the way Clint did so easily.

The hospital is in complete chaos when he steps through the sliding doors, with casualties from the attack on gurneys and chairs and even on the floor, all being seen to by a flurry of nurses and doctors, sorted depending on the severity of their wounds.

As soon as the doors slide shut behind Bucky, Clint and Morgan, Steve appears, rounding the triage desk and hurrying over to them, arms already out to take Morgan and cradle her close. He looks pale and exhausted, barely capable of staying on his feet, and closes his eyes when Morgan sleepily mumbles and curls up against his chest.

“In my defense,” Steve says, voice quiet and trembling. He looks at Bucky and then at Clint and grimaces. “I was gonna drag you along to Morgan’s open house thing next week to meet her teacher.”

“You’re a dick,” Bucky tells him bluntly. “How’s Stark?”

“Tony,” Steve says, sinking into a chair in the waiting room. “Has been secretly funding a superhero squad and working on a renewable energy source that an alien god used to open that portal. But he’s fine. And the tower’s still standing. And the aliens are gone. And Morgan’s safe. And you’re safe. And I need a fucking nap.”

Bucky sighs. “Go home, Rogers. You did your job and got ‘em here, I’ll do my best to put them back together.”

“Fuckin’ superheroes,” Steve says, and Bucky heartily agrees.

“Apparently you married one,” he says, and Steve keeps cursing under his breath.

Bucky tugs Clint close, kisses him hard, still holding his hand, and then says, “I’m gonna name him Alpine. The cat.” Clint beams at him, but before he can say anything, Bucky adds, “Go see Frank at triage, and make yourself comfortable. Gonna be a long wait for x-ray.”

Clint scowls and says, “Aw, c’mon, Bucky, I don’t need --”

“You’ll probably just be finishing up when I’m done my shift,” Bucky says. “Might as well just come home with me.”

Clint blinks at him and then smiles, bright and slow, and says, “Damn, Barnes, that’s even better than your number.”

And Bucky kisses him again before leaving him in the waiting room, ducking into the staff room to grab some scrubs, ready for another long night of putting people back together again.

But this time, at least, he’s gonna have someone to go home with when it’s done.

The End


End file.
